THE AZORES 🇵🇹 Stunning… But So Unpredictable (My Honest Experience)

THE AZORES 🇵🇹 Stunning… But So Unpredictable (My Honest Experience)

welcome back to the Azores everyone [Music] 
this week we are still in Sao Miguel and we’re exploring more of what this island 
has to offer here’s what’s coming up today [Music] after a warm welcome and seeing whales 
and beautiful dolphins and hiking up majestic mountains this week I’m heading east to explore 
more of the island’s secrets but things won’t pan out as perfectly as I’d hoped okay so look my time 
here in Sao Miguel has been a tale of hit or miss yeah this week I will be brutally honest about my 
experience here the Azores are unpredictable and I want to share with you some of my frustrations 
of traveling around these beautiful islands so let me explain some more at the same time as 
we enjoy the beauty of this stunning part of the world enjoy okay so let’s begin i joined a day 
trip to the Furnace region of the island we’re going to experience some truly unique things 
today but we started off with a quick stop at a local organic tea plantation just to have a 
quick nose around and have a quick cup of tea okay welcome to the first stop of our tour 
we’ve just stopped on the side of the road at this beautiful tea plantation i had no idea 
that they grew tea here but it’s all organic and what’s interesting is they’re actually harvesting 
the tea right now [Applause] but yeah it was very interesting to see them harvesting the tea with 
those modified lawnmowers but they don’t handp pick it here like they would do in somewhere like 
Sri Lanka i think the ladies with the baskets on their back could probably do with a few of those 
machines it would make their job a lot easier [Music] after a quick brew it was time to head further 
up into the Ferass region and towards one of the volcanoes that formed this stunning 
island we arrived at this beautiful lake in the crater of the volcano itself now any 
foodies watching this video you’re going to love this place why well let me explain here 
at the volcano which is very active okay it erupted in the 16th century which is quite a 
long time ago but not really in terms of the planet all right but because this place is 
still active there’s a lot of sulfur coming out and there’s a lot of heat now we’ll go 
to a hotring in a minute but this is where they’re cooking our lunch here in the Azors and 
in San Miguel it’s famous for volcanic ovens in the hole there where there’s a lot of heat i 
can feel the heat by the way even standing here the heat from deep underground from the molten 
magma is literally cooking our lunch inside one of these pots is our lunch i knew we were getting 
close cuz I thought our tour guide Edward farted this place is about to blow but at least 
they’re using the heat to cook our lunch six to seven hours it takes to cook the pots 
and every single pot belongs to a different restaurant and the restaurants are actually 
in different areas of the island and there are only a handful of places where it’s 
safe enough and hot enough to cook in these pots is it just a gimmick or does it 
actually add to the flavor we’ll find out in a nearby restaurant we were taken to try the 
food it was a huge platter of juicy meats and local organic vegetables the food was great the 
texture was kind of like a typical English roast dinner just a little bit more tender and a bit 
more juicy than normal thanks to the long slow cook of the food deep underground [Music] lunch 
was incredible really tasty really soft tender vegetables and meats chicken pork sausages chorito 
everything you could imagine but my god am I full i’ve never eaten that much food for lunch in my 
life i don’t remember [Music] the Furnace region is just gorgeous and now we got our chance 
to head to the highlight of this entire area one thing that’s really good about this tour is 
it was quite expensive at €100 exactly per person but it has included obviously transportation 
a tour guide and lunch was included and that was a lot of food and they had wine and they 
had beer and coffees and dessert but it also includes free entrance into this place which 
is normally around €18 entrance all that’s included so this is the beautiful hot springs 
it’s actually inside a huge garden and we’re now given 2 hours here to just do our own thing 
i’m going to go for a nice walk around the park just to let my food digest a little bit and 
then we were told to bring swimming costumes and a towel which I’ve got in my bag to go use the 
public hot springs and yeah so far this has been a very relaxing pleasing comfortable day tour 
to a part of the island that I really wanted to see thank god the weather is beautiful 
and the birds are singing and as usual the Azors are doing their thing putting on 
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if you’re wondering about the temperature it’s perfect it’s beautiful it’s nice and warm it’s 
not too hot i’m not quite sure about the color suppose it’s uh natural there’s no chlorine 
or chemicals involved there is shade on the outside there’s a nice little tree area 
in the middle there’s a few jacuzzi’s as well much smaller jacuzzi ones where you can 
fit about 10 12 15 people near the bathrooms and the changing rooms um there’s a bit private 
there so I won’t film but this is the public one lots of people enjoying a lovely sunny day out 
here in the Azors in the hot springs happy days yeah the hot springs had been great and then the tour came to an end but not before 
we stopped off at one last spot okay this is the final stop we’re at one of the 
old towns here it’s actually the old capital of the island and it’s got a beautiful port 
but the most beautiful thing about it is the beautiful volcano island it’s formed 
5,000 years ago Eduardo told us and it’s just incredible now the sad thing is I actually 
did want to go on a boat tour you can do a boat tour over there go in have a look around even 
do a hike and it looks incredible but the hikes and that season starts in 2 weeks they’re 
having issues with the the marine life and they’re trying to protect it so it’s only 
open at certain times of the year so I’ve just missed out on being able to go over there 
but I flew my drone and it looks incredible [Music] so yeah the tour had been great but now 
I want to talk to you about some of the struggles that I’ve been facing here in the Azors on the 
face of it it might seem like an easy place to explore but yeah join me on the next day in 
the botanical gardens as I explain some more so here’s what’s happened when I arrived on day 
one beautiful weather and there was a festival going on in the town there was lights there 
was action there was locals there was food and everyone was in a good mood and life was 
brilliant i was in a brand new place it looked incredible but day two was a bit cloudy and a bit 
overcast but that’s fine i went whale watching and it was incredible we saw dolphins we saw whales we 
were out on the ocean for about half a day it was fantastic but then day three day four and day five 
it rained it was a complete wash out and I spent 3 days basically in my hotel room san Miguel is in 
the middle of the Atlantic and weather fronts come and weather fronts go but this one came and then 
another one came and then another one came and it was quite a challenge mentally by the way I’m in 
the botanical gardens it’s €5 to get in i’ve never been in here before and it seems beautiful so 
we’ve got something to look at whilst we share our thoughts there was a moment on day five actually 
where the sun came out and I grabbed my backpack and I grabbed my hiking boots and I jumped in a 
cab and headed up into the mountains but as soon as we got to any elevation I realized those sunny 
sections of the island were very limited in fact most of the island especially at an altitude was 
in the clouds in the rain it was extremely windy and it was like a different world if it’s sunny 
and beautiful down here in Ponta Delgada doesn’t mean anything it might still be completely and 
utterly pouring rain blowing a gale or just generally miserable up in the mountains the Azors 
by the way are famous for having four seasons in one day so this is to be expected this is to be 
expected but this will lead me onto one of my points which is the Azors is hit or miss if you 
are having great weather this place is incredible because that’s what happened on day six on day six 
the weather was incredible i checked the webcams which I soon learned were very important and it 
showed nothing but beautiful weather up into the mountains and we went to Sete Volcano and we did 
the viewpoint we did the secret viewpoint we then did the ridge hike it was incredible i had the 
best day i felt great i felt rejuvenated and I just was having the best time ever and it was 
such a hit and then yesterday big miss and it wasn’t to do with the weather now because the 
weather had been so bad for three days in a row a lot of tourists had canled their tours 
canceled their trips their day outs whale watching tours cancelled mountain hiking cancelled 
van tours canled because nobody wanted to go out in the bad weather when the weather window came 
everything was fully booked i couldn’t get on any tour or any trip today i was feeling a little bit 
disheartened i can’t drive a car and I don’t trust the roads here on a motorbike i could have rented 
a scooter and explored on my own but I just don’t feel comfortable with the way they drive here 
they drive on the right hand side of the road they drive very fast and I don’t the weather’s so 
unpredictable i just don’t think it’s safe and I just wanted to be safely driven around so what 
I’m trying to say is that my week here I’ve only really gone out twice and I’ve been stuck in Ponta 
Delgada which yes is charismatic it’s charming and there are restaurants and there’s a great hostel 
and I’ve made some good friends and I’ve watched the FA Cup final but it’s also it’s quite small 
and it makes you a little bit stir crazy if you spend more than a few days which I spent 3 days 
in my hotel room basically looking out the window praying for good weather which just never came 
so what I think the main useful takeaway for you guys watching if you’re thinking about coming to 
the Azors is you have to think about it like this it’s a kind of destination that’s quite hard to 
get to in the first place so because of the time to travel here and the expense you want to make 
sure that you’re going to plan ahead make sure you’re having a few things sorted car rental hotel 
obviously but activities those activities do sell out um and places get busy and fully booked so 
you want to book ahead but you can’t guarantee the weather so let’s say you book a Jeep tour or 
you want to go on a hike into the mountains you wake up that day it’s your it’s your day for your 
tour and the weather is just making it impossible and so what do you do do you still go on the 
tour or do you cancel and do something else so on one hand you have to plan for the Azors but 
on the other you also just want to come here like I did with a sense of freedom go day by day 
and react to the weather which is what I’ve been doing but sadly that didn’t go as planned 
because like yesterday oh tomorrow is going to be good weather can I go on a tour to so and 
so no sorry they’re all fully booked until Monday it’s a good job I booked eight days here 
so that’s been my tale of the seven days in the Azors hit with the whale watching hit with the 
volcano hike and then miss miss with terrible weather and a bit of mental fatigue of being 
here waiting for the weather to change and I’ve made some friends there’s been some positives 
i’ve talked about those so what I’m trying to end my experience here in the Azors with is a 
hit botanical gardens a hit we’ll go up to this viewpoint which I’ve found through Google Maps 
and my own traveler intuition hopefully that will be a hit but just for full transparency 
for the eight days I’ve been here I’ve only had two days of good weather and two days of 
fun the rest of the time been pretty miserable there was one last place I wanted to explore as I 
mentioned about an hour walk north of the town was a little hill that I saw i checked my map and it 
seemed that there was a trail up to the top and I thought it’d be a nice place to finish our time 
in the Azors and sign off with a beautiful view okie dokie welcome to the trail that was uh quite 
a quite a long boring walk north out of town quite flat but now as you can see this is the hill that 
we have to navigate when I was in the taxi going over to the volcano the other day I could see 
this and it’s the first major hill anyway out of the town and I thought “Oh this looks nice i’ll 
definitely head up here if the weather’s nice one afternoon because it’ll have a great view 
of the island it’s not high enough to see the entire island but still could be quite nice please 
don’t say there’s some stray dogs here hello buddy this one looks more scary 
thank god he’s chained up jesus Christ oh my goodness that was 
a bit heart racing for me the teeth and the fangs were showing and 
he wanted me he wanted me dead thank god the farmer had chained him 
up properly because I was in trouble if he hadn’t oh my god that was terrifying 
definitely worth getting rabies for [Laughter] we got quite a few big bulls up 
here and they’re staring at me okay that was quite steep into the wind but we’re here this is the summit 
there’s a little monument here let’s have a look at if it 
has anything written on it here we go it says IGC 1953 and it is the highest 
point of this particular hill didn’t feel like a hill coming up here my heart was pounding with the 
dogs pounding with the bulls and I was desperately trying not to scare them because I keep hearing 
that cows are starting to take revenge so let’s do a 360 and then I will plan my escape so over 
there oh that’s in the wind let me turn around behind me sete Cesadillas i’m definitely saying 
that wrong i’m very sorry that’s where we went in the previous video the beautiful ridge 
hike the beautiful viewpoint the beautiful kano the beautiful lake the beautiful town and 
the beautiful pint i’ll link that video in the description that you can watch it after this that 
is currently in the clouds again in and I checked the webcam and it it’s been like that all day so 
even though down in the town it looks clear cuz when the sun’s out it’s beautiful day obviously 
but the the peak is completely in the clouds then you can also see just how green luscious and 
perfect this island is for farming grazing and growing cattle coming on to the other side this 
is the side I much prefer because you can see all of the little pockets of volcanic activity 
the little volcano puffs you can see all of the little bubbles bubbling away of course if you were 
to zoom up into sky 300 400 m or 10,000 ft in an airplane they would look like little bubbles 
but obviously I’m standing on the biggest one here in the plateau anyway and they are quite 
big and impressive but in comparison to the big volcanoes one in the middle of the island one 
behind me and one out into the distance you can just see just how beautiful and unique Miguel 
is and the Azors in general and why they have an appeal down there is Punta Delgada there’s 
the town you can see some of the landmarks like the church spy which is right next to my hotel and 
the marina with all of the cargo ships and things along the coastline there’s a few more villages 
and towns and basically so much of the island that I was unable to discover i really thought 8 
days would be enough to see the whole island but uh because of weather I’ve barely scratched the 
surface which is a good thing it means that I can come back and not only discover more of San Miguel 
but go to the other islands here’s another thing about the Azors guys on a map you might see San 
Miguel and the other islands and you might say right I’ll go to San Miguel and that could be my 
base of operations and then we can go on day trips or whatever to the other islands you can’t you 
have to fly to them from here anyway because this island is a bit far out compared to the others the 
others are all clustered together and there are fairies that go between them and if I was going 
to do this trip again I would have booked a flight way ahead of time because they’re very expensive 
they’re about €200 return and they’re very short distance flights and I didn’t really justify 
it plus I couldn’t predict the weather i might fly all the way there and go to do the volcano 
hike or go to do something and it would just be a gamble and just something I wasn’t willing to 
risk the funds on but anyway coming up here hit or miss well apart from the scary dog and the 
scary cow it was a complete hit what a view so yes ladies and gentlemen that is my overview 
of my time in the Azors beautiful remote quiet and peaceful the only trade-off being it’s certainly 
unpredictable and that concludes our time in the Azors and Madiraa these Portuguese islands 
had been fantastic and I really hope you’ve enjoyed this series it’s nice to go somewhere a 
little bit different and so if you have enjoyed the trip drop me a like and let me know in 
the comments below where I should venture next time but for now I’ll still see you all 
next week safe travels and thanks for watching [Music]

Let’s explore more of The Azores – Portugal together – Head to www.squarespace.com/paddydoyle to get 10% off your first website or domain with Squarespace.

There are pro’s and con’s to traveling The Azores – here is my experience from the past 8 days on the island of Sao Miguel.

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Chapters:
00:00 – 1:00 – What’s to come…
1:01 – Tea Plantation
2:00 – Volcano Ovens
4:23 – Hot Springs
8:50 – Problems in The Azores
15:21 – Epic Hike

#PaddyDoyle #theazores #travel #adventure